There were fewer on-location production days in the Los Angeles region during the first quarter of 2015 than in the first three months of 2014.

According to a report issued by Film L.A., the number of permitted location shoot days showed a yearly drop of 3.1 percent, from 8,982 to 8,707.

“We’ve been continuing a downward trend for a few quarters, so the 3.1 percent figure is not a massive change,” said Paul Audley, president of Film L.A., which oversees production permits for locations not on studio lots and soundstages. “But we want to keep an eye on it and make sure we turn the corner the other way with the new tax credit program.”

Feature filmmaking, one of the two most prized production categories — along with television drama series — for the large amount of jobs they generate and money they spend locally, was off a significant 15.4 percent, from 1,094 in the first quarter of 2014 to 926 so far this year.

Audley attributed some of that drop to the lottery system that’s been used to allocate California’s $100 million per year production tax credit program. A disproportional amount of the current fiscal year’s credits were swallowed by returning TV series, which drove more feature films and certain other production categories out of state.

“That should turn around with the new program coming in this July, which actually reserves funds for the different categories of features,” Audley said, referring to the $330 million per year plan to combat runaway production Sacramento approved in 2014.

In the television categories, drama was up an impressive 29.7 percent compared with January-March of last year, with 1,058 shooting days — 242 more than in 2014. Reality programming, which is generally lower in job and commerce generation, was also up, with 1,245 shooting days versus 2014’s 1,039, a jump of 19.8 percent.

Among the television projects that received state incentives were “Hit the Floor,” “Justified,” “Murder in the First,” “Stitchers” and “Teen Wolf.”

There were downturns as well. Sitcom shooting days dropped by 14.8 percent, pilots were down 19.4 percent, and web-based TV declined by 12.2 percent.

Still, overall television production grew by 1.7 percent over a year ago, with 3,312 shooting days so far this year compared with 3,257 in the same period of 2014.

Commercial shoots rose 6.2 percent in the first quarter of this year — 1,435 versus 1,351 last year — with projects for companies such as Best Buy, Bose, Honda, TJ Maxx, Samsung and Yelp!

And another category that Film L.A. labels “Other” — which includes low job- and revenue-generating industrial, documentary and even adult films — was down 7.5 percent so far this year, with 3,034 shooting days in the first quarter of 2015 as opposed to 3,280 in the same time frame of 2014.

Bob Strauss has been covering film at the L.A. Daily News since 1989. He wouldn't say the movies have gotten worse in that time, but they do keep getting harder to love. Fortunately, he still loves them.